A Father, A Knight, A Failure
by XBolt51
Summary: AU. What if Myrcella wasn't the one who died? What if it was his son, his king Tommen? One-shot


**_This idea had been on my mind for some time. Also, it made me think that HBO and GRRM should have made Tommen and Myrcella twins. To make them interestingly parallel Jaime and Cersei: as more sweeter innocent versions of them, minus the incest. Frankly, I've always thought of them as such. Myrcella being as beautiful as her mother with none of her malice, and Tommen being something of a male version of Sansa; aspiring to be a knight many maids hear from songs. Joffrey, well, he's a mix of everything wrong which I shall list by order: bad genetic pairing, bad parenting, and all the personality of a typical Lannister (arrogant, thugish, etc.) Hope you enjoy it._**

Jaime looked at his nephew. His son. All his life he'd known him as Uncle. All his life he'd been forced to deny him. To deny who he was. To protect him, and his sister. To protect Cersei. To protect himself. All his life, he'd had to deny the rumours, forbidden to express how he felt about his twin sister. Nearly every day he was reminded how wrong it was for him to love his twin sister. Every time he saw the common people he was reminded. Ridiculed. But they didn't understand. He never chose to love her. No-one chose who they loved.

Kingslayer, they called him. Oathbreaker. A man without honour. He wore those words like armour, protecting himself from their words. They would never understand that he'd saved them all. When he struck down the Mad King, he had saved their lives. So many innocent lives. That was worth breaking an oath, wasn't it? He'd thrown the Stark child from the window to protect Cersei and their children. To protect House Lannister. Maybe it was wrong, but those he loved were worth far more to him than his honour.

Those he loved. His family. Not his house. Not those he was told to like. His lover and his children. His children. They were so far away from everyone that he could call them his own. He could love them. Love him, like a real father, not an uncle. At least for a little while. He could call his son his own. He was his king. His son. His bastard.

He was going to tell him. He would surely understand. He was old enough. And apparently he was in love. That wasn't to say he understood love, or how powerful it was, but he felt it. He felt in innate amount of love for the Tyrell girl Margaery.

He opened his mouth to speak, looking at his beautiful Lannister gold hair, just like his mother's. Anyone could see that he was a lion. There wasn't a bit of stag in him. Not in any of them.

"There's something I wanted to tell you," he began. "Something I should have told you long ago." He was the only one of them she could tell. Joffrey was so unpredictable. He probably would have had him thrown in prison and cut off his head. And Myrcella was so sweet, so caring, she would probably call herself a freak and remove herself from succesion, disgracing House Lannister and probably ending in his parents' public humiliation and murder.

Tommen understood. He smiled, an innocently sweet smile.

"I know what you're trying to say," he said, standing up to clasp his hand. "I know."

How could he possibly know? Was he happy, angry, disappointed? He didn't sound disappointed.

"I think some part of me always knew," he continued, burying his face in his muscular chest. He put his stump around him comfortingly, stroking his head gently with his left hand.

"And I'm glad. I'm glad that you're my father,"

He liked that word. He liked being called it. The sound of it was better than Cersei panting his name as she climaxed, better than watching his niece and nephews come into the world. Because now he could be a father to his own children. He had been hiding it for so long. Carrying the burden of his secrets weighed heavily on him. He'd never realized it before.

But now, he knew. He accepted him for who he was. He could be a father to his son, if only for a few days, while they were far from home. Far from the politics of King's Landing.

He wondered if he knew what it meant. He didn't seem disappointed or disgusted at all. Perhaps he didn't realize that he was a bastard, born of incest. That he wasn't really a king of the realm. Just how many people wanted him dead.

Maybe he did know all that. Maybe he was just proud to be a child born of love. Glad to have a living breathing father, who didn't drink or whore. Maybe he was just proud that he had finally told him. That he finally knew for certain.

Tommen then looked up at him with his emerald green eyes, smiling lovingly. Tears filling his beautiful eyes. He remembered that smile from before. When he was still just a little boy. When he saw him passing a whetstone through his sword. It was filled with admiration; and love.

Suddenly, a small drop of blood begins to drip down from his nose. His sweet porcelain skin seems a little paler. Suddenly, the blood coming out of his nose begins to gush out. His breathing becoming ragged.

"Tommen?"

His eyes begin to flutter rapidly. His growing body suddenly begins to collapse on to the floor. "Tommen? Tommen?!" His breathing is becoming more erratic and irregular.

Tommen was desperately trying to breathe out, trying to say something.

"fa-fa-fa-fath-fath-"

Jaime then saw that his son's delicate fingers wrapping themselves around his golden hand. He then looked up at his face. His sweet innocent face. Plastered with a ghost of a smile.

"Tom?"

"Tommen?"

"TOMMEN, PLEASE WAKE UP! PLEASE!"

But he didn't. His sweetest child didn't wake up. He continued to try, nudging his shoulder. Pleading in his head this was some twisted dream. That Tommen would wake up soon. That he would show him how to fight and act like a true knight should.

He found himself crying in his earnest. He hadn't cried since the day his mother died. He didn't cry when Joffrey died. The boy was a monster through and through, and he never would have saved him. He didn't cry when his father died because he felt the ghost of him judging him, saying "a lion does not cry".

But this was his boy. His boy.

All he ever wanted was to hold him. Hold and caress his sweet little boy in his arms.

But not like this.

Gods. Not like this.


End file.
